HE HAD LIVED behind the veil for
most of her 25 years, and now, in
death, she lay covered by a red-and
gold blanket.
Probably it was her grandest pos
session, that blanket, and when the services
were over-when the words had been spok
en and the body committed to final rest-it
would be returned to her family and perhaps
one day be passed along to the son born to
her in the final minutes of her life.
She died in exile, in Pakistan. As one of
the estimated 1.5
Pakistan
Under
Pressure
million persons who have
fled across the border
since Soviet troops en
tered Afghanistan late in
December 1979, she had
taken up residence in a
makeshift camp in the
rugged North-West Fron
tier Province of Pakistan.
With her tribesman husband, a Pathan, she
had trekked more than a hundred miles to
the camp, and that cost her the strength
needed for childbirth.
She had made the crossing in winter,
when heavy snows in the high country
thinned the ranks of refugees as they at
tempted to escape bombings and strafings of
their villages by moving east until the moun
tains were behind them. But even on the
other side they were dogged by bitter cold.
So it was on this morning. The four men
carrying the body pushed against a chilling
wind as they walked out of the camp, across
the road, and along a dirt path to a hillside
burial site more than a mile away. There
were but few gentle words of remembrance
in the graveside eulogy. Rather, the speaker
exhorted those in attendance to vow to drive
the Russians from Afghanistan. He cried for
revenge. The hawk-faced Pathan tribesmen
replied as one: Revenge would be theirs.
As the second anniversary of the invasion
approaches, cries of outrage have softened,
and the presence of 85,000 Soviet troops in
Afghanistan has taken root. For those op
posed to the spread of Soviet influence, one
blessing may be counted in all of this: Neigh
boring Pakistan has survived.
Seldom in its short and troubled history as
a nation has so much worldwide attention
been visited on Pakistan as it was during the
early phases of the turmoil in Afghanistan.
The Western world embraced Islamabad
Pakistan's gleaming modern capital-and
whispered of delicious things forthcoming:
aid and arms and nourishments enough to
make the country a rock of strength. Or, fail
ing that, to get the armed forces in a position
where they could handle border skirmishes
and put down any Soviet-inspired tribal
uprisings within the country.
Then, as now, Pakistan was under mar
tial law imposed by the military regime of
President General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq.
The press was censored, and the jails held
hundreds of political prisoners. Waves of
unrest and anger over the execution of for
mer Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
surged through the cities.
To some it was a question not so much of
whether Zia and his government would fall,
but rather when. The question went beg
ging, for today the president has moved into
a new position of strength. The economy,
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